2 Loss Analysis in Optical Fiber Transmission

Most of telecommunication traffic (voice and data)around the globe is carried over the optical fiber cable. Theinternational traffic through various countries is carried overoptical fiber cables laid under the sea. Similarly the long-haultraffic within the country is through optical fiber laidunderground. Stress, strain, humidity, temperature, bending atacute angles affects the propagation of light energy in the opticalfiber cable. All such factors increase the optical loss andattenuate the signal. The attenuation, especially in the long-haulcommunication increases the bit error rate and degrades thequality of service. In this paper, different optical losses areanalyzed by setting up several experiments at a single modeoptical fiber spool of 4 km. The optical fiber segment wassubjected to various stress, temperatures and acute bendingconditions. The resulting losses and degradation of the signal wasmeasured using OTDR and Power meter.